1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to information processing equipment having a large-capacity data recorder such as a hard disk drive incorporated therein. More particularly, the present invention is related to information processing equipment having portability and having a possibility of undergoing a dropping impact or the like during data transfer from the data recording unit, and a data transfer method to be implemented in the image processing equipment.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, the application field of a hard disk drive (hereinafter a HDD) has no longer been confined to the field of personal computers but has expanded because the hard disk drive has come to be incorporated in portable audio-visual equipment or car navigation systems. The HDD being incorporated in the equipment is likely to highly frequently undergo a dropping impact or the like. It is therefore necessary to take measures for protection against an impact.
The countermeasures for protecting an HDD against an impact include a method of using, for example, a gyro-sensor to predict a possibility of undergoing an impact derived from dropping or the like, suspending data transfer to or from the HDD before actually undergoing an impact, and withdrawing a magnetic head to a shelter zone. Thus, data to be read or written from or in the HDD is protected, and destruction of the surface of a magnetic head and a platter is prevented (refer to, for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 06-203505 and No. 2003-014776.
However, restarting data transfer after suspending it leads to deterioration of efficiency in data transfer because all data items including data in a sector whose transfer has been completed prior to actual application of an impact must be transferred. In particular, if data transfer is suspended due to an impact occurring during continuous reading of a large amount of data such as a motion picture stream, the efficiency in data transfer may be deteriorated considerably.